In late September, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld a jury's finding earlier this year that Vonage had infringed on two Verizon patents, which are seemingly critical to the way the Net phone company's service works. (Vonage has maintained it has a workaround that doesn't infringe, but some analysts say Verizon may challenge those supposed fixes as well.)

The appeals court opted to send the infringement decision on the remaining patent at issue, which is considered less significant to Vonage's offerings, back to a lower court for a new trial. The court also threw out a $58 million judgment against Vonage because the jury didn't specify how the damages would be divvied up among the three patents at issue.

Update at 2:33 p.m. PDT: , an analyst with Stifel Nicolaus and constitutional law professor at Johns Hopkins University, said requests for appeals court rehearings are "routinely sought" but "seldom granted."